Epilog

I'm home in Georgia thanks to an amazing rescue by Karen.  Here are the headlines:

Too inclement, too cold, too early, too long...
What was I thinking?  Well, every time I talked to my friend Jim in Tarpon Springs around this time of year, he would report 70's and 80's.  Somehow I got the impression that central to south Florida was a good place to escape winter. Well, if you live there, it's a site better than the north, for sure.  However, when you are confined to the cabin of a small sailboat, it's a whole new ballgame.

Up front I want to say, especially to those that remember the fiasco of my last attempt to sail the coast of Florida: Belle came through with flying colors!  She did not leak.  She sailed well and sat well at anchor. The charging system worked amazingly well. All systems were a go. On the other hand, the captain didn't pass muster.  There were just too many storms and cold weather systems coming down the peninsula.  When your only escape is the great out of doors, a lot of bad weather really serves as a downer.  You begin to ask yourself, "am I having fun yet?"

I must also admit that I am a little more of a home body in my "dotage." I seem to need a little more routine and predictability in my life than I once did.  Having company and social interaction seems to have become more important to me than I was aware.  And shall we say, there are a lot of bumps bruises, cuts and aches that get worse aboard a boat as one gets older.

Here's my conclusion.  I plan in the future to pick my weather more carefully.  I plan to sail an area with the truck and trailer available to make my escape.  I plan to make my trips less than a month.  And I plan to spend most of my sailing time in the future with company.  That would be Karen who is my partner.

So, I did have fun, especially at Cedar Key.  In a way, however, I feel like I failed my first test.  Yet I can also look at it as a shakedown cruise, which is what I should have planned on all along.  So two weeks is what it was.  I learned my lesson and I'm moving on.

I hope my readers will indulge me in understanding the nature of the journey.  I think this journal of my experiences could have been fun to write and to read.  I'm sorry I didn't deliver.   Again, thanks for indulgence in what can only be construed as live reporting.  What happens, happens.  Farewell for now. Be safe, have fun and plan on more sometime in the future.